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An  Unwritten  Chapter  in 
the  History  of  South 

Africa 


Reprinted  from  The  Quarterly  Journal  of  the 
University  of  North  Dakota 
January,  1911 


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An  Unwritten  Chapter  in  the  History 

of  South  Africa 

Andrew  Alexander  Bruce 
Dean  of  the  College  of  Law,  University  of  North  Dakota 

r  |  VHERE  is  an  unwritten  South  African  history  which  has  ulti- 
mately  and  intimately  concerned  the  Boers,  but  which  has  in 
the  main  been  independent  of  them.  It  is  the  history  not  so  much  of 
the  Transvaal  or  of  the  Orange  Free  State,  not  so  much  of  the  Boer 
or  of  the  Briton,  as  of  Matabeleland,  Basutoland,  Zululand,  Bechuan- 
aland,  Mashonaland  and  Rhodesia,  which  are  territories  of  a  much 
larger  extent  and  future  importance  than  are  those  which  are  now 
occupied  by  the  descendants  of  the  Huguenots.  It  is  the  history  of  a 
far  reaching  scheme  of  personal  ambition  and  of  territorial  aggran¬ 
dizement.  It  is  the  history,  however,  not  so  much  of  Great  Britain 
herself  as  of  the  leading  spirits  of  the  South  African  colonies  which 
fly  her  flag,  and  of  a  trading  company  which  she  herself  has  cre¬ 
ated.  It  is  the  story  of  a  scheme  of  imperialism,  but  of  an  imperial¬ 
ism  which  has  been  utterly  antagonistic  to  the  imperialism  and  to  the 
interests  of  the  mother  country  herself.  There  have  for  a  long  time 
been  two  kinds  of  imperialists  in  South  Africa,  the  national  and  the 
local.  Paradoxical  tho  it  may  seem,  the  national  has  of  the  two  been 
the  more  altruistic  and  the  more  humane. 

For  many  years  a  gigantic  game  of  commercial-political  chess  has 
been  played  in  South  Africa.  The  prize  contended  for  has  been  an 
empire.  The  pawns  have  been  the  natives  and  the  Kaffirs.  The 
players  have  been  the  leading  spirits  of  the  British  South  African 
Chartered  Company,  and  the  Portuguese  and  German  and  Boer  com- 
mercialists.  The  seemingly  helpless  onlookers  and  protestants  have 
been  the  real  intelligence  and  patriotism  of  the  Orange  Free  State 
and  of  the  Transvaal  and  the  enlightened  conscience  and  patriotism 
of  Great  Britain  herself.  It  has  been  a  struggle  between  the  more 
sordid  interests  of  the  older  South  African  self-governing  colonies 
of  Natal  and  the  Cape  and  the  conscience  of  the  mother  country, 
between  the  interests  of  the  South  African  capitalists,  who  control 
the  governments  of  Cape  Colony  and  of  Natal  and  the  affairs  of  the 
Chartered  Company  ( for  the  Chartered  Company  itself  has  been  only 
a  means  to  an  end),  and  the  sense  of  justice  always  to  be  found  among 
the  rank  and  file  of  every  self-governing  people.  Among  those  who 
have  possessed  this  conscience  and  this  sense  of  justice  have  generally 
been  found  the  soldier  and  the  military  leader.  His  trade  has  been 


fS724:S 


126  1  The  Quarterly  Journal 

war,  but  it  has  been  a  manly  one.  He,  it  is  true,  has  often  been  an 
instrument  in  the  wrong  that  has  been  done,  but  his  duty  and  his 
training  has  been  to  obey  orders.  To  him  has  been  given  no  business 
management  and  no  political  control,  and  it  is  not  on  the  field  of 
battle  but  in  the  private  office  that  schemes  of  conquest  and  aggran¬ 
dizement  are  usually  directed  and  planned.  When  in  South  Africa 
the  army  officer  has  been  in  a  position  to  protest.  He  has  usually 
protested. 

The  aim  of  the  British  Imperialist  and  of  the  thoughtful  army 
officer,  has  been  to  give  a  measure  of  independence  to  the  native  states 
and  to  secure  their  inhabitants  in  the  tenure  of  their  lands  and  prop¬ 
erty.  His  plan  has  been  a  residential  system  of  government,  such  as 
that  now  generally  adopted  in  India,  and  under  which  the  native 
rulers  are  left  undisturbed  so  long  as  they  govern  justly  and  with  a 
due  regard  for  life,  property  and  morals.  By  this  plan  exploita¬ 
tion  by  foreign  capital  is  largely  prevented,  and  the  usages  and  cus¬ 
toms  of  the  original  populations  are  respected.  The  desire  of  the 
Colonial  and  of  the  South  African  Imperialist,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  been  the  absorption  of  the  native  states  and  the  building  up  of  a 
white  federation  which  shall  be  independent  of  the  British  govern¬ 
ment  and  free  from  “the  bothersome  intermeddlings  of  its  noncon¬ 
formist  conscience.”  In  this  latter  desire,  in  so  far  at  least  as  the 
native  races  were  concerned,  both  the  Boer  and  the  British  colonists  at 
first  shared.  The  religion  of  the  Boer  is  the  religion  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  and  of  the  Old  rather  than  of  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament.  He  believes  that  to  him  has  been  given  the  land  of  the  Ca- 
naanite  to  go  into  it  and  to  possess  it,  and  in  his  eyes  the  black  man 
finds  but  little  favor.  The  schemes  for  the  first  South  African  Bunde, 
indeed,  included  the  Boer  as  well  as  the  Briton.  After  the  Boer  War 
of  1901,  however,  the  ideas  of  the  British  colonist,  or  of  the  Cecil 
Rhodes  party,  materially  changed,  and  it  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  in  the 
reconstruction  consequent  upon  the  successful  termination  of  that  war, 
the  home  government  and  the  British  people  generally  have  been 
inclined  to  be  much  more  liberal  and  friendly  to  the  conquered  races 
than  have  the  governments  or  the  people  of  the  self  governing  South 
African  colonies.  It  was  the  colonial  and  not  the  home  press  which 
insisted  upon  the  suspension  of  the  constitution  of  Cape  Colony  and 
the  disenfranchisement  of  the  Boer  sympathizers.  In  the  controversy 
as  to  whether  or  not  the  Transvaal  should  be  annexed  to  the  older 
colonies  and  the  voting  strength  of  the  Dutch  inhabitants  thus  min¬ 
imized,  or  be  governed  as  a  separate  province  with  a  large  measure 
of  home  rule,  the  colonial  and  especially  what  is  termed  “the  Rhodes 


History  of  South  Africa 


127 


128 


The  Quarterly  Journal 


party,”  was  strongly  in  favor  of  the  annexation  idea.  There  can, 
indeed,  be  no  doubt  that  much  of  the  power  and  popularity  of  Mr. 
Cecil  Rhodes  in  South  Africa  was  due  to  the  fact  that  his  own 
schemes  of  empire  and  the  course  of  his  own  personal  ambition  were 
generally  in  accord  with  the  popular  impulses  and  desires  of  the 
British  South  African  colonists.  It  is  a  deplorable  fact,  that,  how¬ 
ever  firmly  the  love  for  fair  play  and  sympathy  for  the  weak 
may  generally  be  implanted  among  the  British  people,  and  however 
determined  as  a  nation  England  may  have  been  to  suppress  slavery 
and  to  do  justice  to  the  colored  man,  the  Colonial — the  Afrikander — 
whether  British  or  Boer  born,  has  as  a  class  had  no  real  sympathy 
with  the  Negro  and  no  regard  for  his  liberty  or  for  his  life.  Miss 
Olive  Schreiner,  in  her  “Tooper  Peter  Hackett”  and  her  other  stories, 
has,  indeed,  only  too  truthfully  portrayed  the  course  of  South  African 
events  and  the  state  of  the  South  African  mind.  The  remorseless 
slaughter  of  the  natives  which  so  sullied  the  earlier  histories  of  the 
colonization  of  Australia  and  of  New  Zealand,  and  which  has  not 
been  found  wanting  even  on  the  American  plains,  has  found  its 
counterpart  in  the  Dark  Continent. 

So  far,  indeed,  the  history  of  South  Africa  has  well  illustrated 
the  lesson  long  since  taught  by  the  story  of  the  occupation  of  India. 
It  has  once  more  been  shown  that  a  system  of  colonization  or  of  em¬ 
pire  building  which  is  carried  on  directly  by  a  popular  government, 
such  as  that  of  England  or  of  the  United  States,  and  which  is  too  far 
from  the  scene  of  action  for  the  majority  of  its  people  to  have  any 
personal  pecuniary  interest  in  the  subject  territory,  is  liable  to  be,  and 
has  generally  been,  humane  and  approximately  just,  but  that  the 
methods  of  trading  companies  or  of  independent  colonies  which  have 
been  allowed  to  extend  their  territories  and  influence  unchecked  by  the 
veto  of  the  popular  conscience  of  the  parent  nation,  and  which  have 
been  impelled  by  the  desire  for  gain  and  for  gain  alone,  have  been, 
and  will  probably  always  be,  sordid,  cruel  and  corrupt.  Both  the 
East  India  Company  and  the  British  South  African  Company  grew 
and  flourished  in  the  dark.  If  the  methods  of  either 
had  been  generally  known  in  the  mother  country,  they 
would  probably  never  have  been  tolerated.  It  is  fair  to  assume 
that,  like  its  predecessor  in  India,  the  Chartered  Company  of  South 
Africa  will  before  long  be  stripped  of  its  powers.  The  histories  of 
these  two  companies  are  not,  however,  anomalies,  nor  is  governmental 
tyranny  by  means  of  a  trading  company  the  product  of  English 
history  and  of  the  English  mind  alone.  The  histories  of  the  trading 
companies  of  Portugal,  of  Spain  and  of  Holland  can  no  more  bear 
the  light  of  scrutiny  than  can  those  of  England. 


History  of  South  Africa 


129 


The  real  history  of  the  development  of  the  South  African  Em¬ 
pire  began  with  the  annexation  of  the  Transvaal  by  the  British  in 
1877.  However  inevitable  this  annexation  may  at  the  time  have  ap¬ 
peared  to  many  to  have  been,  no  one  conversant  with  the  facts  will 
contend  for  a  moment  that  it  was  accomplished  either  with  the  author¬ 
ity  of  the  British  government  or  with  the  consent  of  the  majority  of 
the  Boers  themselves.  At  the  most  there  was  merely  a  ratification  of 
the  act  by  the  home  government  after  the  same  had  been  accomplished 
under  the  falsest  of  pretenses.  There  was  no  submission  of  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  annexation  by  the  Boer  government  to  the  Boer  electorate 
and  there  was  no  subsequent  ratification  by  the  nation.  It  was, 
indeed,  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  adoption  towards  the  Boers 
of  the  tactics  which  both  before  and  since  that  time  have  so  generally 
been  used  by  the  British  and  the  Portuguese,  and  even  by  the  Boers 
themselves,  towards  the  native  races.  It  was  the  policy  and  plan  of  se¬ 
curing  a  basis  of  title  by  obtaining  concessions  of  land  from  the  chiefs 
and  an  acknowledgement  by  such  chiefs  of  British,  Portuguese  or 
Boer  sovereignty,  as  the  case  might  be,  and  then  of  going  in  and 
occupying.  By  these  means  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  square 
miles  of  territory  have  been  obtained  at  the  cost  of  a  few  rifles  and  of 
a  few  yards  of  cloth.  In  such  negotiations  the  right  of  the  native 
ruler  to  part  with  the  land  in  question,  which,  if  he  owned  at  all,  he 
owned  merely  as  a  trustee  for  his  people,  or  his  right  to  acknowledge 
on  behalf  of  his  subjects  a  foreign  sovereignty,  was  never  inquired 
into. 

The  annexation  of  the  Transvaal  brought  with  it  the  Zulu  War 
of  1878,  which  in  turn  resulted  in  making  Zululand  a  subject  British 
state  and  in  largely  extending  the  influence  of  the  British  in  South 
Africa.  There  followed,  in  1881,  a  war  with  the  Basutos,  a  fine  war¬ 
like  race  of  the  Zulu  stock  who  in  the  migration  of  the  Zulu  tribes 
southwards  had  separated  from  the  main  body  of  the  invading  horde 
and  had  settled  in  the  mountainous  districts  which  lie  to  the  southeast 
of  the  Orange  Free  State.  The  Basutos  are  the  only  South  African  peo¬ 
ples  who  make  use  of  the  horse  for  military  purposes,  and  on  many  oc¬ 
casions  their  fine  army  of  some  thirty  thousand  mounted  men  proved 
more  than  a  match  for  the  British.  The  result  of  the  war  was  a  com¬ 
promise  and  the  giving  to  Basuto-land  almost  complete  home  rule 
under  the  residential  system  of  government  to  which  we  have  before 
referred.  To  use  the  language  of  an  officer  of  the  Cape  Mounted 
Rifles,  “They  gave  us  as  good  as  we  gave  them.  Altho  the  war  was 
fought  on  account  of  our  fear  of  their  growing  military  power  and 
to  enforce  our  demands  for  their  disarmament,  we  were  glad  enough 


130 


The  Quarterly  Journal 


to  compromise  upon  their  merely  agreeing  to  register  their  arms.” 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  it  was  this  same  tribe,  which,  in  con¬ 
junction  with  the  Boers  who  had  emigrated  into  the  Orange  Free 
State  and  beyond  the  River  Vaal,  had  some  years  before  taken  up 
arms  against  the  British  and  had  been  largely  instrumental  in  com¬ 
pelling  the  latter  to  retire  from  the  newly  settled  territories  and  to 
agree  to  what  is  now  known  as  the  Sand  River  Convention. 

The  Basuto  War  was  followed  in  1884  by  “the  Bechuanaland 
Expedition,”  which  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an  occupa¬ 
tion  by  the  military  forces  or  mounted  police  of  Cape  Colony 
of  the  territory  of  Bechuanaland.  It  was  the  result  of  the 
desire  of  the  British  colonists  to  forestall  the  Boers  who  were  already 
beginning  to  encroach  upon  the  disputed  area.  Its  real  objective, 
however,  was  not  so  much  the  acquisition  of  Bechuanaland 
itself,  which  was  deemed  to  be  of  but  little  value,  as  the 
prevention  of  the  Dutch  Republics  from  expanding  towards,  and  ob¬ 
taining  an  outlet  on,  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  especially  from  acquiring 
a  foothold  in  the  territories  of  Matabeleland,  Mashonaland  and  Man- 
icaland,  or  in  what  is  now  known  as  Rhodesia.  Altho,  therefore,  what¬ 
ever  Boers  were  found  in  the  disputed  territory  were  unceremoniously 
banished  therefrom,  the  energies  of  the  invaders  were  chiefly  directed 
towards  conciliating  the  natives,  discovering  watercourses,  digging 
wells,  building  a  telegraph  line  and  in  otherwise  laying  the  founda¬ 
tions  for  a  farther  advance  towards  the  El  Dorado  of  Manica.  For 
it  was  in  Manica  that  gold  was  supposed  to  abound  and  the  historic 
land  of  Ophir  to  have  been  located.  There  was,  too,  between  Manica 
and  the  seaport  of  Beira  but  a  comparatively  small  strip  of  Portu¬ 
guese  territory.  With  Manica  once  occupied  and  a  seaport  within 
easy  grasp,  the  possibilities  of  an  independent  South  African  Empire 
were  great  and  inviting. 

“The  Bechuanaland  Expedition,”  indeed,  tho  ostensibly  fath¬ 
ered  by  the  home  government,  was  really  colonial  and  commercial  in 
its  purpose  and  in  its  origin.  Behind  it  were  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  Doc¬ 
tor  Jameson,  Messrs.  Johnson,  Heany  and  Barrow,  Governor  Loch, 
Mr.  Alfred  Beit,  Mr.  Barney  Barnato  and  many  of  the  other  South 
African  politicians  and  capitalists  wTho  were  afterwards  so  influential 
in  the  affairs  of  the  British  South  African  Company  and  in  the  ex¬ 
ploitation  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  the  country.  It  was  predatory 
rather  than  scientific,  and  commercial  rather  than  humane. 

Next,  and  in  1888,  followed  the  obtaining  of  the  notorious  Rudd- 
Rhodes  concession  and  with  it  the  open  advent  of  private  commercial¬ 
ism  into  the  field  of  politics,  conquest  and  exploration.  The  grantor, 


History  of  South  Africa  131 

or  the  party  of  the  first  part,  was  Lo  Bengula  the  king,  or  alleged 
king,  of  what  was  then  known  as  Matabeleland  and  Mashonaland  and 
of  the  territories  contiguous  thereto,”  or  what  is  now  known  as 
Southern  Rhodesia,  a  territory  which  is  much  larger  in  extent  than  that 
of  France  and  Germany  combined.  The  grantees  or  parties  of  the 
second  part  w^ere  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes  and  Mr.  Rudd.  Under  and  by 
means  of  this  agreement  and  in  consideration  of  one  thousand  Mar¬ 
tini-Henry  rifles,  one  thousand  rounds  of  cartridges,  a  pension  of  one 
hundred  pounds  sterling  a  month  and  a  stern-wheel  steamboat  on  the 
Zambesi  River,  there  was  granted  to  Mr.  Rhodes  and  his  intimates 
“the  complete  and  exclusive  charge  over  all  metals  and  minerals  sit¬ 
uated  and  contained  in  his  (Lo  Bengula’s)  kingdoms,  pricipalities  and 
dominions,  together  with  full  power  to  do  all  things  which  they  ( Mr. 
Rhodes  et  al.)  may  deem  necessary  to  win  and  procure  the  same.” 
The  agreement  ostensibly  conferred  mineral  rights.  It  was  in  fact 
the  gift  of  an  empire,  for  the  right  to  “win”  was  all-embracing  and 
was  liberally  construed.  The  steamer  was,  fortunately  for  the  mon¬ 
arch,  never  delivered,  nor  were  all  of  the  rifles,  nor  was  all  of  the 
pension  paid.  It  is,  indeed,  unnecessary  to  suggest  that  steam  is  a 
dangerous  plaything  for  a  naked  savage,  and  it  was  perhaps  this 
humane  consideration,  added  to  the  mercenary  one,  which  prevented 
the  delivery  of  the  vessel.  The  land,  however,  was  occupied. 

It  was  at  this  point,  and  in  1889,  that  the  history  of  the  British 
South  African  Company  really  begins,  altho  its  principal  stockholders 
had  for  many  years  been  directing  the  politics  of  the  South  African 
colonies.  Now,  for  financial  and  other  reasons,  the  policy  of  the 
home  government  began  to  be  strongly  opposed  to  any  further  terri¬ 
torial  extension  in  South  Africa.  Up  to  this  time,  indeed,  all  of  its 
activity  had  been  instigated  from  Cape  Colony  itself,  and  now  that 
the  Boers  were  deemed  to  have  been  sufficiently  excluded  from  the 
outside  world  and  from  the  sea  coast,  there  seemed  to  be  no  object  in 
acquiring  further  stretches  of  territory  which  must  prove  costly  and 
whose  acquisition  might  possibly  lead  to  further  native  wars  and 
complications.  It  was  not,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  until  some  years  later 
that  the  existence  of  the  vast  mineral  deposits  which  were  so  eagerly 
sought  after  by  the  Chartered  Company  was  known  to  the  average 
Englishman  in  the  mother  country,  and  it  was  from  the  purses  of  the 
stay-at-home  British  tax-payers  that  the  expenses  of  long  campaigns 
would  ultimately  have  to  be  drawn.  Added  to  this  natural  inertia 
was  the  weight  of  a  severe  financial  depression,  and  with  it  the  desire 
of  both  the  British  and  the  Cape  governments  to  foist  upon  other 
shoulders  the  expenses  of  developing  and  protecting  the  northern  ter- 


132 


The  Quarterly  Journal 


ritories.  The  result  was  the  incorporation  in  October,  1889,  of  the 
British  South  African  Company  and  the  granting  to  it  vast  military, 
commercial  and  territorial  powers.  But  for  the  influence  of  this 
short-sighted  mania  for  economy,  indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how 
any  such  charter  as  that  granted  to  the  British  South  African  Com¬ 
pany  could  ever  have  been  given.  The  history  of  the  East  India 
Company  and  of  the  reasons  which  led  to  the  cancellation  of  its 
franchise  were  matters  of  comparatively  recent  date,  and  should,  it 
would  seem,  have  had  a  deterrent  effect.  No  further  proof  would 
seem  to  have  been  necessary  to  demonstrate  the  viciousness  of  a  policy 
which  allowed  government  and  commercialism  to  go  hand  in  hand 
and  which  endowed  a  trading  company  with  the  power  of  maintaining 
an  army  of  conquest.  The  charter,  indeed,  was  almost  criminal  in  its 
liberality  and  reflected  as  much  discredit  upon  the  British  Colonial 
office  as  it  did  upon  Mr.  Rhodes  and  his  associates.  It 
recognized  and  sanctioned  the  Rudd-Rhodes  and  other  similar  grants 
(for  the  Rudd-Rhodes  grant  was  but  one  of  many).  It  granted  to  the 
new  company  full  power  “to  carry  into  effect  divers  concessions  and 
agreements  which  have  been  made  by  certain  of  the  chiefs  and  tribes 
inhabiting  the  said  region,  or  elsewhere  in  Africa,  with  a  view  to  pro¬ 
moting  trade,  commerce,  civilization,  and  good  government  in  the 
territories  which  are  or  may  be  comprised  or  referred  to  in  such  con¬ 
cessions.”  It  conferred  the  power  not  merely  to  work  mining  claims, 
but  to  establish  a  government.  It  granted  the  power  even  to  maintain 
an  army  of  conquest  and  of  occupation.  Lo  Bengula  had  conceded 
to  Mr.  Rhodes  and  to  his  associates  “the  power  to  carry  into  effect” 
and  “the  full  power  to  do  all  things  which  they  might  deem  necess¬ 
ary.”  The  charter  reaffirmed  the  grant,  and  placed  no  restrictions 
on  what  might  be  “deemed  necessary.” 

Immediately  north  of  Cape  Colony  and  northwest  of  Natal  and 
of  the  Orange  Free  State,  and  northwest  of  the  Transvaal  lies  the  ter¬ 
ritory  of  Bechuanaland.  North  and  northeast  of  Bechuanaland  lies  the 
territory  of  Matabeleland  and  northeast  of  Matabeleland  that  of 
Mashonaland.  East  of  Mashonaland  is  the  territory  of  Manica  or  Ma 
nicaland  and  east  of  Manicaland  is  Portuguese  East  Africa.  It  was 
in  Matabeleland,  Mashonaland,  Manicaland  and  the  adjoining  terri¬ 
tory  that  the  Rudd-Rhodes  mineral  grants  lay,  and  to  this  territory 
not  merely  the  Chartered  Company,  but  the  Boers  and  the  Portuguese 
laid  claim. 

The  first  step  of  the  newly  organized  corporation,  therefore,  was 
the  occupation  of  Mashonaland  with  a  small  but  finely  equipped  and 
disciplined  army.  The  pretext  was  the  extension  of  a  protectorate 


History  of  South  Africa  133 

over  the  country  to  safeguard  the  natives  from  the  invasions  of  the 
Matabeles,  whose  territory  adjoins  Mashonaland  on  the  southwest, 
and  who,  tho  nominally  ruled  by  the  same  paramount  chief,  Lo  Ben- 
gula,  were  their  hereditary  and  implacable  foes.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  the  inhabitants  of  Mashonaland  were  in  need  of  protec¬ 
tion  of  some  sort,  as  they  were  entirely  disorganized,  were  constantly 
at  war  among  themselves,  and  for  many  years  had  proved  an  easy 
prey  to  the  slave-raiding  Matabeles.  What  the  army  of  occupation 
really  wanted,  however,  was  to  prospect  for  gold  and  to  acquire 
further  concessions  of  territory  from  the  native  chiefs  on  which  the 
officers  of  the  Chartered  Company  could  base  a  title  in  future  years. 
A  war  with  the  Matabeles  was  the  last  thing  they  desired.  Lo  Ben- 
gula,  the  king  of  Matableland  and  of  Mashonaland,  was  therefore 
informed  that  the  company  had  some  small  grievance  against 
the  Mashones  and  the  few  Boers  who  had  attempted  to  anticipate 
the  British  in  the  settlement  of  the  country,  and  permission  was 
merely  asked  to  march  a  small  force  thru  Matabeleland  and  into 
the  territory  in  question.  Lo  Bengula  granted  the  request,  on  con¬ 
dition  that  the  expedition  should  pass  by  his  own  kraal,  and  evidently 
intended  to  prepare  an  ambuscade  for  its  coming  and  to  annihilate  it. 
The  conditions  offered  were  accepted,  but  the  forces  of  the  company 
took  an  entirely  different  route  and  were  well  into  the  disputed  ter¬ 
ritory  before  the  African  monarch  became  aware  of  the  deception 
played  upon  him.  It  was  then  too  late  for  action  and  hostilities  were 
for  the  time  averted.  This  was  no  doubt  well  for  the  Chartered  Com¬ 
pany,  as  Lo  Bengula  was  by  no  means  a  savage  as  far  as  military 
affairs  were  concerned,  and  at  that  time  commanded  a  well  disciplined 
army  of  many  thousands  which  was  thoroly  drilled  and  organized 
into  regiments. 

In  Mashonaland,  little,  if  any,  resistance  was  met  with.  Its 
people  were  perhaps  the  least  organized  of  all  the  native  tribes  and, 
as  a  protection  both  as  against  their  own  people  and  the  Matabeles, 
lived  in  strongly  fortified  kraals  upon  the  kopjes  or  hill-tops  which 
abound  everywhere  in  the  country.  In  each  of  the  kraals  there  was 
generally  to  be  found  but  one  family  or  clan.  This  fact,  added  to  the 
one  that  in  Mashonaland  (as  formerly  in  the  Scottish  highlands),  a 
personal  feud  is  a  clan  feud,  led  to  continual  neighborhood  quarrels 
and  petty  wars,  and  in  time  of  general  danger  there  was  no  basis  for 
organization  or  for  a  united  stand  against  the  common  enemy.  It 
was  not  long,  therefore,  before  the  country  was  completely  subjugated 
and  not  only  was  a  valuable  basis  for  further  expeditions  into  the  in¬ 
terior  of  Africa  and  to  the  East  obtained,  but  valuable  concessions  of 


134 


The  Quarterly  Journal 


territory  and  of  mining  rights  also.  The  Portuguese  advance  into 
the  disputed  territory  from  the  East  was  also  checked  and  thwarted, 
for  the  Portuguese,  as  well  as  the  British,  had  sighted  the  glint  of  gold 
and  for  many  years  had  been  as  active  in  attempting  to  spread  their 
influence  into  Mashonaland  and  to  obtain  concessions  of  land  as  had 
been  their  Saxon  neighbors.  How  this  Portuguese  advance  was 
checked  may  be  well  illustrated  by  one  example.  A  certain  native 
chief  of  some  little  importance,  had,  for  some  time,  been  wavering 
in  his  allegiance  between  the  British  and  the  Portuguese.  Like  the 
majority  of  his  people,  who  by  this  time  had  been  taught  the  useless¬ 
ness  of  attempting  to  resist  the  white  man,  his  only  anxiety  had  been 
to  discover  which  of  the  two  contending  factions  was  the  stronger  and 
to  side  with  it.  When  the  British  advanced  into  his  territory,  the  chief 
became  convinced  of  the  superiority  of  their  arms,  and  accordingly, 
and  in  exchange  for  some  rifles  and  a  few  yards  of  cloth,  hoisted  the 
British  flag  over  his  kraal  and  abjectly  acknowledged  the  Queen  of 
England,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  Mr.  Cecil 
Rhodes,  as  his  paramount  chieftain  and  overlord.  A  short  time  after¬ 
ward,  however,  the  British  column  left  the  district,  and  much  to  the 
embarrassment  of  the  native  monarch  a  Portuguese  expedition  ap¬ 
peared  upon  the  scenes.  The  result  was  that  the  British  flag  was 
lowered  and  the  Portuguese  emblem  was  hoisted  in  its  place.  On 
these  facts  being  made  known  to  the  officials  of  the  Chartered  Com¬ 
pany,  an  imperative  order  was  given  to  a  young  officer  to  obtain  a 
restoration  of  affairs  to  their  former  condition  and,  if  possible,  a  con¬ 
cession  of  land  from  the  chieftain.  For  diplomatic  reasons  an  open  rup¬ 
ture  was  not  desired  with  either  the  natives  or  the  Portuguese,  and  this 
an  advance  in  force  was  sure  to  provoke.  The  lieutenant,  therefore, 
set  out  on  his  mission  with  an  escort  of  but  a  handful  of  men,  and 
after  traveling  some  hundred  miles  came  in  sight  of  the  king’s  kraal, 
near  which  he  concealed  himself  and  his  party  until  night  set  in.  Then, 
in  the  dead  of  night,  while  the  savages  were  all  asleep,  he  broke  sud¬ 
denly  into  the  native’s  hut  and,  revolver  in  hand,  informed  the  king 
of  his  mission.  He  stated  that  the  British  and  not  the  Portuguese 
were  the  monarch’s  real  friends  and  that  the  white  chief  was  greatly 
angered  with  him  on  account  of  his  conduct,  and  demanded  the  instant 
removal  of  the  Portuguese  flag  and  the  substitution  of  the  Union 
Jack  in  its  place.  He  at  the  same  time,  also  demanded  the  signature 
or  mark  of  the  monarch  to  a  deed  which  ceded  a  supposedly  valuable 
tract  of  land  to  the  Chartered  Company,  and  for  which  he  had  been 
authorized  to  promise  the  payment  of  some  fifty  pounds  and  some 
clothing  and  other  stores.  The  Savage  was  so  taken  aback  by  this 


History  of  South  Africa  135 

sudden  visitation,  so  impressed  with  the  seeming  omnipresence  and 
omniscience  of  the  Briton,  so  absolutely  deceived  by  the  effrontery 
of  the  whole  deed,  (for  he  had  no  means  of  knowing  whether  there 
were  ten  thousand  British  lying  concealed  in  the  forest  outside  his 
hut  or  none  at  all)  that,  surrounded  by  hundreds  of  black  warriors 
as  he  was,  he  immediately  granted  all  the  requests  of  the  British 
officer  and  abjectly  apologized  for  his  past  backslidings.  While  tell¬ 
ing  this  story  to  the  writer  its  hero  said  that  his  conscience  rebelled  at 
the  time  and  has  often  since,  and  that  in  his  heart  he  pitied  the  chief. 
He,  however,  excused  himself  by  saying  that  he  was  under  military 
orders  and  had  no  option  in  the  matter,  and  that  the  savage  had 
played  falsely  with  the  British  and  was  merely  paid  back  in  his  own 
coin.  He  also  spoke  somewhat  incoherently  about  “the  manifest  des¬ 
tiny  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,”  and  contended  that  the  British  were 
none  other  than  the  descendants  of  the  ten  lost  tribes  of  Israel  con¬ 
cerning  whom  it  had  been  prophesied  that  they  should  “go  northwest 
of  Palestine”  and  become  “the  people  of  the  Isles”  and  “a  nation  of 
nations.” 

It  was  not  long,  however,  before  even  more  hazardous  business 
was  to  be  undertaken.  Rumors  came  to  the  ears  of  the  officials  of 
the  British  South  African  Company  not  only  of  further  Portuguese 
encroachments  into  the  disputed  area  but  of  the  discovery  of  gold  to 
the  east  and  north  within  the  Portuguese  zone  itself  and  in  what  was 
commonly  known  as  the  District  of  Zimbabia.  A  plan  was  accord¬ 
ingly  hurriedly  formed  and  as  hurriedly  put  into  operation  to  push 
rapidly  towards  the  northeast,  to  seize  the  Portuguese  fortresses  of 
Umtalli  and  Massi  Kessi  which  commanded  the  portion  of  Manica 
in  which  the  district  of  Zimbabia  and  the  supposed  gold  fields  lay, 
to  obtain  the  submission  of  the  natives  by  overawing  their  paramount 
chiefs  among  whom  were  Umtassi  and  the  “She”  of  Ryder  Haggard, 
the  queen  mother,  Germani,  and  to  then  push  rapidly  towards  the  sea 
and  obtain  an  outlet  on  the  Indian  Ocean  by  capturing  the  Portuguese 
seaport  of  Beira.  An  unforeseen  obstacle  was  at  first,  however,  found 
in  the  person  of  Captain  Heyman,  who  commanded  the  forces  in  the 
field,  and  wTho,  after  a  hurried  consultation  with  his  officers,  peremp¬ 
torily  refused  to  advance  unless  he  was  given  positive  assurances  that  a 
state  of  war  with  Portugal  actually  existed  and  that  war  had  been  de¬ 
clared  in  London.  These  assurances  were,  however,  soon  given  by 
Dr.  Jameson,  altho  they  afterwards  proved  to  have  been  false  in 
every  particular.  They  were  later  on  justified  by  the  doughty  doctor  to 
an  officer  of  the  expedition  in  the  following  words:  “You  know,  my 
dear  sir,  you  are  too  cantakerous,  too  squeamish.  There  are,  you 


136 


The  Quarterly  Journal 


know,  such  things  as  political  exigencies.  When  such  exist,  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  political  lie.”  Whatever  may  be  said,  indeed,  in 
general,  concerning  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  South  Africa,  and  its 
many  wars,  but  little  just  criticism  can  be  directed  against  the  sol¬ 
diers  who  were  actually  in  the  field.  The  military  man,  be  he  officer 
or  private,  knows  as  a  rule,  nothing  of  the  diplomacy  or  of  the 
causes  which  lie  behind  any  given  campaign.  To  him  is  to  obey  and  “not 
to  reason  why.”  To  him  is  said  “come  and  he  cometh,  go  and  he 
goeth.”  In  this  particular  instance  the  officers  in  question  had  been 
campaigning  in  the  midst  of  the  African  jungle  for  more  than  two 
years,  they  were  over  a  thousand  miles  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
and  several  hundreds  of  miles  from  any  railroad.  Their  only  means 
of  communication  with  the  outside  world  was  by  means  of  a  postal 
and  telegraph  system  which  was  owned  and  controlled  by  the  British 
South  African  Company  itself.  It  was  the  uniform  practice  of  the 
Chartered  Company  to  exercise  a  system  of  censorship  over  the  letters 
and  correspondence  even  of  its  own  officers,  while  newspaper  corre¬ 
spondents  were  not  allowed  in  the  newly  acquired  districts  nor  to 
travel  with  the  troops.  To  use  the  language  of  an  officer  concerned, 
“then  indeed  had  come  the  time  truly  upon  earth  when  might  was 
right,  and  there  was  no  law  but  that  of  the  strong  in  the  African 
forests.” 

The  positive  assurance  asked  for  being  thus  furnished,  there 
was  nothing  for  the  soldier  to  do  but  to  advance,  and  a  campaign 
was  accordingly  entered  upon  which  for  reckless  daring  has  had  but 
few  equals  in  history.  Separated  by  over  a  thousand  miles  from  the 
British  colonies  and  from  their  base  of  supplies,  in  a  fever-infected 
district,  thru  trackless  forests  and  over  vast  prairies  of  buffalo  grass 
which  grew  so  high  as  to  conceal  the  herds  of  wild  elephants  which 
abounded  everywhere,  surrounded  by  lions  and  wild  beasts  of  every 
kind  and  by  tens  of  thousands  of  even  more  savage  natives,  the  column 
of  but  a  little  more  than  fifty  men  marched  to  the  attack  of  the  Portu¬ 
guese  fortresses.  The  greater  part  of  the  country  thru  which  they 
marched  had  never  been  explored  by  a  white  man  before.  So  far  was 
it  from,  and  for  so  long  had  it  been  separated  from,  the  countries  of 
civilization,  that  the  use  of  wheels  as  mechanisms  of  locomotion  were 
utterly  unknown  to  the  natives,  while  a  horse  was  an  object  that 
created  an  excess  of  terror.  The  natives  looked  upon  this,  to  us, 
peaceful  animal,  as  a  new  wild  beast  which  had  been  tamed  by  the 
white  man  for  his  purposes.  They  dreaded  it  because  it  was  new  to 
them.  They  did  not  know  how  it  fought  and  therefore  did  not  know 
how  to  cope  with  it.  T  he  humor  of  the  expedition  was  furnished  by 


History  of  South  Africa  137 

a  jackass  of  the  pack  train,  whose  brays  terrified  the  natives  even 
more  than  the  roars  of  the  lions  which  abounded  everywhere. 

Fortunately  for  the  British  column  the  fortress  of  Umtalli  was 
found  to  be  but  poorly  garrisoned  and  was  easily  taken.  From 
Umtalli  a  long  march  to  the  north  wTas  again  made  and  the  fortress 
of  Massi  Kessi  wTas  as  easily  captured.  The  British  had  now  not  only 
advanced  into  the  Portuguese  territory  and  driven  the  Portuguese 
from  what  is  nowT  known  as  Eastern  Rhodesia,  but  were  in  command 
of  the  upper  portion  of  the  Pungwe  River  down  which  an  advance 
could  easily  be  made  to  the  coast,  while  the  projected  railroad  from 
Cape  Town,  and  which  was  to  connect  the  fortresses  of  Umtalli  and 
Massi  Kessi  with  the  seaport  of  Beira,  could  now  easily  be  pushed  to 
completion  and  be  utilized.  Hardly,  however,  had  the  victory  been 
won,  and  were  the  troops  well  on  their  march  to  the  sea,  than  word 
was  received  that  the  Portuguese  had  been  unexpectedly  and  strongly 
reinforced  and  had  recaptured  the  fort  of  Massi  Kessi  from  the  hand¬ 
ful  of  troops  and  the  supposedly  friendly  natives  who  had  been  left  to 
guard  it.  This  catastrophe  made  a  return  march  absolutely  necessary, 
as  the  retreat  of  the  British  was  cut  off  as  well  as  any  chance  of  suc¬ 
cor  from  the  British  colonies.  There  was  also  imminent  danger  that 
the  native  chiefs,  who  had  been  awed  into  submission  by  the  successes 
of  the  British,  might  nowT  come  to  consider  the  Portuguese  the 
stronger  party  and  to  side  with  them.  It  was,  therefore,  decided 
that  Massi  Kessi  must  be  retaken  at  any  cost,  and  the  return  march 
was  begun.  Words  cannot  describe  the  hardships  and  deprivations 
of  that  journey.  The  troops  had  hardly  any  supplies.  Their  shoes 
were  worn  out.  Their  clothing  wTas  in  rags.  Nearly  all  of  their 
horses  had  died.  They  had  practically  nothing  but  their  arms  to  rely 
on  and  the  resources  of  a  country  which  was  fortunately  swarming 
with  game  of  all  kinds.  Fever  decimated  their  ranks  and  made  long 
halts  frequently  necessary.  At  times  they  had  hardly  strong  men 
enough  left  to  bury  their  dead.  But  they  had  “that  stubborn  valor 
which  knows  not  defeat,”  that  peculiar  and  characteristic  instinct  of 
the  Scot  and  of  the  Briton  which  insists  on  looking  upon  war  and 
its  privations  as  an  exciting  sport  which  becomes  more  and  more 
interesting  and  enjoyable  as  the  hardships  and  dangers  associated  with 
it  increase. 

The  neighborhood  of  Massi  Kessi  was  at  last  reached,  but  in 
what  condition  for  an  assault  or  a  siege  was  the  advancing  force? 
Worn,  fever-stricken,  with  no  base  of  supplies,  with  no  way  of  re¬ 
treat,  over  a  thousand  miles  from  the  British  colonies,  its  condition 
was  pitiable  indeed.  The  British  were  certainly  in  no  condition  to 


138  The  Quarterly  Journal 

conduct  a  siege,  much  less  to  make  an  assault.  A  strange  stroke  of 
fortune,  however,  favored  them.  For  some  unknown  reason,  the 
Portuguese  leader,  Colonel  Andrada,  instead  of  waiting  for  the  at¬ 
tack  upon  his  strongly  intrenched  position,  which  the  starving  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  British  and  their  lack  of  water  must  have  compelled  them 
sooner  or  later  to  make,  marched  in  force  out  into  the  open  to  meet 
them.  In  the  contest  that  ensued  the  Portuguese  troops,  altho  out¬ 
numbering  the  British  by  ten  to  one,  were  no  match  for  their  an¬ 
tagonists.  They  were  poorly  trained  and  disciplined  and  were  but  in¬ 
different  marksmen,  while  the  splendid  fellows  before  them  had  the 
best  blood  of  England  in  their  veins,  were  the  veterans  of  several  cam¬ 
paigns  and  had  spent  many  years  amidst  the  big  game  hunting  of 
Africa.  In  other  words,  what  the  Boers  in  after  years  were  to  the 
city  recruited  regiments  of  England,  so  were  the  Chartered  Company’s 
forces  to  those  of  the  Portuguese.  The  fire  from  the  colonists  as  they 
lay  concealed  in  the  long  grass  was  certain  and  rapid,  and  the  Port¬ 
uguese,  who  had  begun  to  advance  in  open  order,  soon  commenced  to 
waver,  then  to  break  and  then  in  their  panic  to  mass  together.  Their 
closely  packed  ranks  then  presented  a  fine  target  for  the  one  cannon 
of  the  British  and  the  slaughter  was  terrible.  A  hopeless  panic  en¬ 
sued  which  the  Portuguese  officers  were  utterly  unable  to  control. 
Then  occurred  one  of  those  chivalric  deeds  of  war  which  add  so  much 
to  the  glamor  of  the  battlefield  and  which  often  make  even  the  drama 
of  war  luminous  and  fascinating.  Three  Portuguese  officers  were 
deserted  by  their  soldiers  and  left  alone  upon  the  open  plain  exposed 
to  the  whole  fire  of  the  British  lines.  They  refused,  however,  to 
run  for  shelter  and  with  stately  dignity  and  as  one  man,  stepped  stead¬ 
ily  but  slowly  backwards,  with  their  faces  to  their  foes  and  with  no 
more  haste  than  if  the  field  had  been  a  parade  ground.  In  a  moment 
the  British  from  sheer  admiration  and  amazement  ceased  firing  and 
to  a  man  anticipated  the  order  which  was  scon  shouted  by  every 
officer.  The  Portuguese  officers  halted  and  saluted  splendidly,  and 
then  continued  their  stately  retreat  while  ringing  cheers  took  the  place 
of  the  rattle  of  the  musketry. 

The  fortress,  however,  was  yet  to  be  taken  and  it  seemed  very 
doubtful  if  the  British  would  even  now  be  equal  to  the  task.  A 
clever  ruse,  however,  on  the  part  of  the  besiegers  and 
an  equally  foolish  mistake  on  the  part  of  their  antagonists 
soon  brought  about  the  desired  result.  As  nightfall  set 
in  several  small  detachments  of  the  British  were  sent  out  in  differ¬ 
ent  directions  and  ordered  to  build  fires  which  should  be  as  con¬ 
spicuous  as  possible,  and  to  send  up  signal  rockets.  The  fires  and  sig- 


History  of  South  Africa 


139 


nals,  as  was  desired,  were  seen  by  the  garrison  of  the  fort  and  were 
mistaken  for  the  campfires  and  the  signals  of  reinforcements  who 
were  supposed  to  have  come  to  the  support  of  the  besiegers.  So 
completely  deceived  were  the  Portuguese  that  they  evacuated  their 
position  in  the  night  time  and  retreated  to  the  rear  which  the  colonists 
had  been  careful  to  leave  open.  “Signor,”  said  the  Portuguese  Gen¬ 
eral,  Andrada,  a  year  or  so  afterwards  while  speaking  of  the  siege 
to  a  British  officer,  “I  was  too  vide  avake.  You  think  you  me  had 
surround  vid  reinforcements.  You  think  you  catch  ze  fox  in  ze 
hole.  But  I  was  avake.  I  you  disappoint.”  It  was  fortunate  indeed 
for  the  victors  that  such  a  mistake  had  been  made  for  in  the  captured 
fortress  they  found  eleven  gatling  guns.  Their  lack  of  supplies  would 
have  compelled  them  to  endeavor  to  take  the  position  by  storm.  That 
they  could  have  withstood  the  fire  of  the  guns  is  incredible. 

There  were  in  Massi  Kessi  large  supplies  of  clothing  and  pro¬ 
visions  as  well  as  the  guns  in  question,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
the  troops  were  sufficiently  recuperated  to  complete  the  task  which 
had  been  so  fortunately  begun.  The  wavering  allegiance  of  the 
native  chiefs  was  once  more  strengthened  and  the  prestige  of  the 
British  was  soon  firmly  established.  Chief  among  the  converts  was 
the  paramount  chief,  Umtassi  and  the  queen  mother,  Germani,  who, 
no  doubt,  is  the  original  of  the  “She”  of  South  African  fiction.  This 
remarkable  woman  seems  to  have  been  at  this  time  the  only  woman 
ruler  among  the  African  tribes.  The  Germani  do  not  marry  but  per¬ 
petuate  their  line  by  choosing  their  successors  from  among  the  un¬ 
married  women  of  their  courts  and  it  is  accordingly  said  by  the  natives 
that  “the  race  of  Germani  never  dies.”  It  is  undoubtedly  from  this 
fact  that  Mr.  Haggard  derived  the  idea  of  his  immortal  princess. 

It  was  in  this  manner  that  the  eastern  portion  of  the  territory 
of  Rhodesia  was  acquired,  for  altho  the  fortress  of  Massi  Kessi  was 
afterwards  restored  to  the  Portuguese  and  the  scheme  for  the  occupa¬ 
tion  of  the  seaport  of  Beira  and  the  intervening  country  was  for  the 
time  abandoned,  the  western  and  northern  portions  of  Manicaland 
have  since  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  British  South  African 
Company,  and  in  this  portion  is  the  fortress  of  Umtalli  and  the  dis¬ 
trict  which  bears  its  name. 

The  fate  of  one  man,  Joseph  Gouveia  by  name,  is  perhaps  here 
worth  relating,  as  it  serves  to  illustrate  the  condition  of  the  country 
under  Portuguese  rule  and  the  attitude  of  the  natives  towards  the 
European  invaders.  Gouveia  was  part  African  and  part  Portuguese 
by  descent.  He  was  the  owner  of  a  large  number  of  slaves.  He  was 
a  man  of  great  wealth  and,  among  the  natives,  was  reputed  to  be  the 


140  The  Quarterly  Journal 

“husband  of  a  thousand  wives.”  He  had  been  granted  by  the  Portu¬ 
guese  authorities  what  practically  amounted  to  the  right  to  tax-farm 
Manicaland.  That  is,  in  return  for  a  certain  annual  payment  to  the 
Portuguese  government,  to  make  what  profit  he  could  out  of  the  taxes 
of  the  country.  He  in  fact  seems  to  have  occupied  in  a  large  degree 
in  Manicaland  the  position  which  the  South  African  Chartered  Com¬ 
pany  occupied  in  the  bordering  districts  and  now  occupies  in  Manica¬ 
land  itself.  Any  sort  of  supervision  by  the  home  government  over  his 
atcions  was  entirely  lacking.  His  policy  was  to  side  with  and  to  bribe 
the  more  prominent  South  African  chiefs.  They  in  return  gave  him 
carte  blanche  with  the  natives,  since  they  cared  little  how  these  un¬ 
fortunates  were  treated  so  long  as  their  own  positions  were  secure. 
The  consequence  was  a  system  of  tax  farming  which  would  have  put 
the  most  unscrupulous  Roman  provincial  tax-gatherer  to  shame. 

After  the  defeat  of  the  Portuguese,  however,  the  power  oi 
Gouveia  began  to  wane,  and  thinking  it  necessary  to  make  terms  with 
the  British  he  asked  for  an  interview  with  the  officer  who  was  then 
in  command  of  the  forces  of  the  Chartered  Company.  The  request 
was  granted  and  with  a  large  following  the  former  despot  started 
from  the  north  for  the  fortress  of  Massi  Kessi.  The  condition  of 
affairs,  however,  had  now  changed.  Gouveia  was  no  longer  considered 
the  master  spirit.  The  natives,  whose  only  policy  was  to  side  with 
the  strongest,  had  begun  to  recognize  that  the  English  power  was 
superior  to  that  of  the  former  tax-gatherer  and  of  the  Portuguese.  The 
march  southward,  therefore,  had  hardly  been  begun  before  the  half- 
breed  despot  was  attacked,  and  being  deserted  by  his  followers,  was 
captured  and  killed.  On  hearing  of  this  affair,  the  British  officer 
said  that  his  greatest  anxiety  was  for  the  widowed  members  of  the 
large  harem  of  the  deceased  African  potentate.  To  use  his  own  words, 
“To  know  what  on  earth  to  do  with  them,  leaving  to  the  future  to 
decide  whose  wives  they  should  be  at  the  Resurrection.”  He,  how¬ 
ever,  said  that  his  anxiety  was  uncalled  for,  and  that  the  harem  melted 
away  in  a  day.  Its  members  evidently  took  the  first  opportunity  to 
make  their  escape  and  to  return  to  the  families  and  tribes  from  which 
they  had  been  seduced,  kidnapped  or  bought. 

Of  this  petty  Portuguese  war  little  or  nothing  was  known  or 
heard  by  the  outside  world,  altho  a  vast  stretch  of  territory  was  added 
by  it  to  the  sphere  of  the  British  influence  in  Africa.  It,  indeed, 
hardly  created  a  ripple  on  the  diplomatic  sea.  The  chief  reason  for 
this  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  Chartered  Company  was  in  possession 
of  all  the  means  of  communication  with  Europe,  the  messengers,  the 
troops,  the  postal  and  telegraph  services.  It  was  in  a  position  to 


History  of  South  Africa  141 

exercise,  and  did  exercise,  a  rigid  censorship  over  the  correspondence 
and  telegrams  even  of  its  own  officials,  civil  and  military.  The 
mouths  of  the  Portuguese  were  closed,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  re¬ 
cession  of  a  portion  of  the  eastern  section  of  the  conquered  territory 
and  by  the  pressure  which  was  quietly  brought  to  bear  by  the  holders 
of  Portuguese  securities  in  London.  The  recession  of  the  territory 
in  question  and  the  acknowledgement  of  the  British,  or  rather  by  the 
British  South  African  Company,  of  the  title  of  the  Portuguese  thereto, 
was  in  itself  no  small  consideration  for  silence,  since  the  original  title 
of  the  Portuguese  was  no  better  than  that  of  the  Chartered  Company 
itself.  The  claims  of  both  parties,  indeed,  were  based  upon  might 
and  upon  might  alone.  Both  of  the  contestants  had  imposed  their 
sovereignty  by  force  and  fraud  upon  the  subject  native  races,  and 
neither  had  any  valid  claim  which  it  would  have  cared  to  submit  to 
the  scrutiny  or  arbitration  of  the  world’s  family  of  nations.  Another, 
and  perhaps  the  most  important,  element  in  the  maintenance  of 
silence  concerning  what  was  little  more  or  less  than  piracy  upon  the 
dry  land,  was  the  fact  that  the  son  of  no  less  a  person  than  the  Port¬ 
uguese  Minister  of  War  was  implicated  with  the  Chartered  Com¬ 
pany  in  the  high  handed  proceedings  which  led  to  the  occupation  of 
Manica.  The  young  man  in  question,  had  several  years  before  fled 
from  Portugal  to  escape  prosecution  for  having  killed  an  opponent 
in  a  duel,  and  had  taken  service  with  the  Chartered  Company.  For 
many  years  he  had  been  left  in  total  obscurity  and  had  been  but  little 
noticed  or  favored,  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  difficulty  with  the 
Portuguese,  an  entire  change  of  front  had  taken  place,  rapid  prefer¬ 
ment  had  been  offered  to  him  and  opportunities  for  sharing  in  the 
growing  wealth  of  the  officers  of  the  Company.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  the  desire  of  the  father  not  to  interfere  with  the  rapid 
progress  of  his  son  was  an  important  factor  in  causing  the  Portuguese 
Minister  of  War  to  so  completely  ignore  the  occurrences  in  South 
Africa. 

If  the  occupation  of  Matabeleland,  Mashonaland,  and  Manica- 
land  was  high-handed,  the  conduct  of  the  country  after  its  occupa¬ 
tion  was  no  less  so.  The  main  object  of  the  occupation  had  been  the 
gold  supposed  to  be  concealed  within  the  territory,  and  the  officers 
of  the  Chartered  Company  had  no  intention  of  allowing  the  treasure 
to  slip  thru  their  fingers  or  to  come  into  the  possession  of  others. 
Few,  if  any,  settlers  or  prospectors  were  accordingly  allowed  in  the 
country,  but  the  forces  of  the  Chartered  Company  were  disbanded 
and  induced  to  begin  prospecting  for  the  coveted  metal.  The  analogy 
of  the  old  English  law,  which  treats  minerals  as  the  property  of  the 


142 


The  Quarterly  Journal 


crown,  was  followed  and  a  royalty  of  fifty  per  cent  was  imposed  by 
the  Company  upon  all  metals  mined.  This  strange  anomaly  of  a  com¬ 
pany  annexing  an  empire  and  then  representing  the  sovereign,  could 
hardly  have  existed  if  the  British  public  had  had  any  knowledge  of 
what  was  going  on  in  South  Africa.  It  is  very  questionable  indeed, 
if  the  Charter  of  the  Company  conferred  any  such  power  in  territory 
over  which  the  corporation  had  unquestioned  control,  much  less  so 
over  a  country  which  it  had  wrested  by  force  from  the  natives  and 
from  the  Portuguese.  Much,  however,  as  this  conduct  was  resented 
by  the  miners,  the  hardships  created  by  it  were  but  trifling  as  com¬ 
pared  to  those  which  were  occasioned  by  the  manipulation  of  the 
commercial  and  business  interests  of  the  territory.  Time  was  allowed 
for  the  country  to  be  quite  thoroly  prospected,  at  least  that  part  of 
it  where  minerals  were  supposed  to  be  likely  to  be  found,  and  during 
this  period  outside  capitalists,  explorers  and  especially  newspaper  cor¬ 
respondents  were  rigidly  excluded  from  the  territory,  while  the  news 
of  its  resources  was  carefully  guarded  from  the  outside  world.  To 
do  this,  as  we  have  before  seen,  was  comparatively  easy,  since  all  of 
the  means  of  communication  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Chartered 
Company.  When  a  sufficient  length  of  time  had  elapsed  and  when 
the  resources  of  the  prospectors  were  generally  exhausted, 
the  banking  firm  of  Johnson,  Heany  and  Borrow,  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  and,  on  behalf  of  some  undisclosed  principals,  who 
afterwards  turned  out  to  be  none  others  than  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  Mr. 
Alfred  Beit  and  his  circle  of  associates,  offered  to  buy  the  claims  of 
the  prospectors.  This  the  firm  was  readily  able  to  do  at  trifling 
figures,  for  even  those  miners  who  had  found  ore  in  paying  quantities 
had  no  money  with  which  to  develop  their  claims  and  were  com¬ 
pelled  to  sell  out  for  what  they  could  get.  In  most  cases  they  had 
no  capital  of  their  own  and,  as  we  have  before  seen,  outside  capitalists, 
other  than  the  banking  firm  in  question,  were  rigidly  excluded  from 
the  country.  These,  however,  were  not  the  only  means  of  acquiring 
wealth  offered  to  the  manipulators  of  the  Chartered  Company  by  the 
occupation  of  Rhodesia.  After  the  best  of  the  mineral  deposits  had 
been  secured  in  the  manner  that  we  have  before  indicated,  a  railroad 
was  prospected  into  the  newly  acquired  territory  from  the  South  and 
partially  constructed.  No  sooner  was  this  railroad  begun  than  the 
wonders  of  Manicaland,  or  Eastern  Rhodesia  as  we  may  now  term 
the  country,  were  published  to  the  world.  The  rediscovery  of  the 
“Mines  of  King  Solomon,”  the  marvelous  agricultural  resources  of 
the  country,  and  “its  ivory,  its  apes  and  its  gold”  were  everywhere 
advertised  and  exploited.  The  result  was  a  rapid  rise  in  the  value 


143 


History  of  South  Africa 

of  the  stock  of  the  British  South  African  Company  which  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  heavy  selling  on  the  part  of  the  initiated  few.  Then  came 
the  time  for  depression  in  values.  The  railroad  which,  according  to 
the  advertisements,  was  to  tap  the  country  and  bring  its  resources  to 
Capetown  was  delayed  in  its  construction.  The  difficulties  of  a  suc¬ 
cessful  operation  were  exaggerated  and  the  marvelous  stories,  here¬ 
tofore  spread  abroad,  concerning  the  wealth  of  Manicaland  were 
discounted.  The  stock  of  the  Chartered  Company  then  fell  rapidly 
in  value,  only  to  be  snapped  up  bv  Mr.  Rhodes  and  his  friends,  who 
had  now  turned  from  sellers  to  heavy  buyers.  Then  followed  another 
period  of  activity  and  of  promotion,  and  the  extension  of  the  railroad 
and  its  successful  operation.  This  later  history  is  now  known  to  all 
and  need  not  here  be  further  dwelt  upon. 

Great  as  these  commercial  achievements  may  have  been  and  cun¬ 
ningly  wrought  the  lace-work  of  intrigue  which  lay  behind  them, 
there  were  political  plans  and  ambitions  even  more  audacious  and  far 
reaching.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the  dream  of  Cecil  Rhodes 
was  a  federated  South  African  Republic,  or  rather  empire,  with  him¬ 
self  at  its  head.  He  was  not  an  imperialist  as  the  term  is  generally 
accepted.  He  was  rather  a  South  African  Imperialist,  and  the  views 
of  what  might  be  called  the  British  Imperialist  in  South  Africa  were 
totally  opposed  to  and  repugnant  to  his.  When  once  he  had  suffi¬ 
ciently  used  those  who  adhered  to  the  idea  of  a  British  rather  than  of 
a  South  African  Empire,  he  got  rid  of  them  as  soon  as  an  opportunity 
offered.  It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  as  soon  as  Manica  was  thoroly 
occupied,  all  of  the  officers  and  servants  of  the  Chartered  Company 
and  even  the  officers  of  the  regular  army  who  had  had  any  controll¬ 
ing  part  in  the  numerous  military  occupations  and  expeditions,  which 
resulted  in  the  occupation  and  conquest  of  Bechuanaland,  Matabeland, 
Mashonaland  and  Manica,  were  either  summarily  removed  or  were 
transferred  to  distant  posts.  The  power  of  the  Chartered  Company 
with  the  High  Commissioners  of  Cape  Colony,  Sir  Hercules  Robin¬ 
son  and  Mr.  Locke,  was  very  great,  and  it  was  on  the  recommendation 
of  these  officials  that  the  home  government  acted.  It  is  a  noticeable 
fact,  indeed  that  at  the  opening  of  and  even  during  the  Boer  War, 
when  it  would  seem  that  the  services  of  officers  and  men  who  were 
thoroly  conversant  with  the  country,  both  as  regards  its  geography 
and  its  peoples,  were  imperatively  demanded,  Lord  Methuen  and 
General  Buffer  seem  to  have  been  practically  the  only  officers  of  long 
African  experience  who  were  engaged  by  the  government. 

The  officers  whose  removal  was  obtained,  were  imperialists  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term.  They  did  not  believe  in  a  South  African, 


144 


T he  Quarterly  Journal 

but  in  a  British  Empire.  They  believed  that  the  former  would  be 
detrimental  to  the  interests  of  the  natives,  and  they  were  also  too  ^ 

loyal  to  the  British  crown  to  favor  any  scheme  which  would  result 
in  the  breaking  away  of  South  Africa  from  the  mother  country. 

They,  therefore,  stood  for  and  advocated  a  system  of  government  / 

which  had  already  been  adopted  in  Basutoland,  and  which  should 
make  of  Basutoland,  Matabeleland,  Mashonaland  and  Rhodesia  crown 
colonies  or  residential  dependencies.  Mr.  Rhodes,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  for  many  years  been  planning  for  a  South  African  Nation  or 
State  and  for  the  merging  into  it  of  all  of  the  native  dependencies, 
caring  nothing  for,  but  rather  advocating  the  absolute  annihilation  of 
the  native  tribes  and  races  which  must  be  the  result  of  such  a  course 
and  of  exposing  the  Negro  to  the  competition  of  the  white  man.  In 
other  words,  Mr.  Rhodes  was  an  Afrikander  and  an  advocate  of  the 
South  African  Bund.  The  steps  already  taken  in  the  furtherance  of 
his  plans  were  already  many  and  important.  With  the  exception  of 
Basutoland,  the  Transvaal  Republic,  the  Orange  Free  State,  the  small 
strips  of  Portuguese  territory  on  the  east  and  west  coasts  and  the 
German  district  on  the  west,  the  entire  control  of  South  Africa  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  political  leaders  of  Cape  Colony  and  of  Natal, 
who  were  all  closely  identified  with  the  British  South  African  Com¬ 
pany.  For  many  years  care  had  been  taken  to  prevent  the  Imperial 
Government  from  taking  too  much  interest  in  or  assuming  too  much 
responsibility  for  the  occurrences  in  South  Africa  and  from  acquiring 
a  too  intimate  knowledge  concerning  them.  If,  for  instance,  the 
reader  may  desire  to  look  into  the  “London  Daily  Graphic”  or  the 
other  London  papers  which  were  published  at  the  beginning  and  dur¬ 
ing  the  progress  of  the  Matabele  war,  he  will  find  numerous  inspired 
articles,  usually  written  by  “A  Pioneer,”  which  urged  the  home  gov¬ 
ernment  to  keep  its  hands  off  South  Africa  and  the  Matabele  trouble. 

These  articles  vigorously  asserted  the  ability  of  the  local  authorities 
in  South  Africa  (The  Chartered  Company)  to  deal  with  the  ques¬ 
tion  without  the  aid  of  the  mother  country  and  insisted  upon  the 
advisability  of  allowing  them  to  do  so.  So  far,  therefore,  the  Im¬ 
perial  Government  had  had  but  little  to  do  with  South  Africa  and 
the  public  of  both  England  and  Africa  had  been  educated  to  look 
upon  Mr.  Rhodes  and  his  circle  of  associates  as  the  real  empire 
builders  of  the  dark  continent.  A  serious  obstacle,  however,  was  now 
found  in  the  Transvaal  Republic.  Unlike  Matabeleland,  Basuto¬ 
land,  Mashonaland  and  Rhodesia,  where  there  were  but  few  white 
settlers,  there  was  in  the  Transvaal  Republic  a  Uitlander  population 
of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  persons  and  these  were  mostly  men. 

) 


History  of  South  Africa 


145 


Many  of  these  Uitlanders  had  vested  interests  in  the 
country  and  the  majority  were  loyal  to  the  British  throne 
and  to  the  idea  of  a  British  Empire.  In  the  Transvaal,  there¬ 
fore,  there  was,  naturally  enough,  experienced  some  difficulty 
in  perfecting  the  Bund,  or  at  any  rate  a  bund  which  should  look  upon 
Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes  as  its  creator,  its  saviour  and  its  head.  The  grow¬ 
ing  discontent  among  the  Uitlanders  which  for  many  years  preceded 
the  invasion  of  Doctor  Jameson  at  last  furnished  the  opportunity  to 
Mr.  Rhodes.  Perhaps  it  might  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  the  dis¬ 
content  grew  so  acute  and  took  such  a  course  in  its  manifestations 
that  Mr.  Rhodes  was  compelled  to  take  active  measures  or  to  re¬ 
nounce  once  and  for  all  his  dreams  of  personal  political  power  and  of 
a  federated  South  African  Empire.  For  nearly  four  years  preceding 
the  Jameson  raid  the  Uitlanders  in  the  Transvaal  had  been  planning 
an  uprising  and  at  the  time  of  the  raid  were  fully  armed.  They  had 
even  gone  so  far  as  to  bribe  a  number  of  Boer  officials  and  to  procure 
the  promise  of  the  surrender  of  large  stores  of  ammunition  and  of 
other  supplies.  Mr  Rhodes  knew  this.  If  the  insurrenction  were 
once  allowed  to  assume  form  under  other  leadership  than  his  own 
or  to  become  successful  without  his  aid  or  assistance,  his  chances  of 
winning  the  loyalty  and  support  of  the  Uitlanders  would  be  forever 
lost,  and  with  it  his  ambition  of  becoming  the  head  of  the  African 
Federation.  The  Uitlanders  would  have  some  other  leaders,  some 
other  Washingtons,  around  whose  standards  they  would  rally  and 
who  would  be  their  candidates  for  the  office  of  president  or  dictator 
of  the  South  African  Federation.  The  Jameson  raid  was  therefore 
undertaken.  It  failed  lamentably  merely  because  the  Uitlanders  mis¬ 
trusted  Mr.  Rhodes  and  the  Chartered  Company  and  were  not  willing 
to  trust  to  their  leadership. 


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